A number of sheet material dispensers and other superficially related dispensers have heretofore been proposed. Those of which applicant is aware are disclosed in: (a) U.S. Pat. No. 2,806,591, issued 17 September 1957 to Appleton for "DISPOSABLE TISSUE RECEPTACLE"; U.S. Pat. No. 4,583,642, issued 22 April 1986 to Blythe et al. for "DISPENSING PACKAGE FOR A COLLECTION OF INTER-CONNECTED SEVERABLE SHEET MATERIAL AND METHOD OF DISPENSING"; U.S. Pat. No. 3,908,822, issued 30 September 1975 to Giberstein for "DEVICE FOR PACKAGING AND PRESENTATION OF KNITTED OR HOSIERY ARTICLES SUCH AS, MORE PARTICULARLY, STOCKINGS OR TIGHTS"; U.S. Pat. No. 4,170,390, issued 9 October 1979 to McCabe for "PAPER TOWEL DISPENSER"; U.S. Pat. No. 3,310,167, issued 21 March 1967 to Knox for "RIBBON DISPENSER"; U.S. Pat. No. 4,694,973, issued 22 September 1987 to Rose et al. for "WARMING DEVICE FOR DISPOSABLE TOWEL DISPENSER"; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,863,027, issued 5 September 1989 to Yano for "BAG ROLL CUTTING DEVICE"; and (b) a brochure for Merfin's "SINGLE SHEET PAPER TOWEL DISPENSER".
Each of the foregoing references contains drawbacks rendering the sheet material dispensers disclosed therein inflexible and/or inefficient for dispensing of sheet material. For example, all of the references cited above have fixed dispensing orifices. Accordingly, the towel dispenser disclosed therein are severely limited in mounted options because their fixed dispensing orifices prescribe the mounting position.
In addition, none of these references allow adjustment and correction of the sheet material contained therein when such sheet material is jammed, without opening the container in which the sheet material is stored.
The McCabe and Yano patents disclose means for stabilizing rolls of interconnected sheets. However, the sheets in those patent are dispensed from the outside of the supply rolls. The stabilizing means disclosed therein could not be adapted to stabilize a supply roll of sheet material that dispenses sheets from the center.
In the above-cited Knox and McCabe patents, elongate orifices are disclosed that, effectively, guide interconnected sheets out of a dispensing orifice. Niether of the guiding orifices of the dispensers disclosed in Knox and McCabe would be effective at guiding sheets off of a roll of sheets when sheets are drawn from the center of the roll of sheets and the roll of sheets is stationary. Accordingly, the guiding action disclosed in these patents would be ineffective in a wide variety of situations.